Gun threat keeps Beaverton High students in classrooms

Police unable to find any danger after call of 'fight with a gun'

Reports of a fight involving a gun at Beaverton High School Thursday afternoon sent the school into a 'lock-in' mode where students were kept in their classrooms for more than 1 1/2 hours.

After an extensive search by Beaverton police, the incident ended without incident and about 2,000 students were dismissed for the day.

Officer Mark Hyde, spokesman for the Beaverton Police Department, said a male called around 1 p.m. saying, 'there's a fight at the high school and there's a gun involved.'

An estimated 20 officers and detectives searched the main building, cafeteria and Merle Davies facility. At 2:40 p.m., police had finished their search, found nothing and allowed students to leave, only 10 minutes later than their normal dismissal time.

After the incident, Amy Hijikuro, a junior, said she was in her Marketing II class, preparing to watch a movie, when the lock-in occurred.

'We couldn't get out of the room,' she said.

Hijikuro said announcements were made over the classroom public address system about every 20 minutes telling students to remain in their classrooms.

'Then they told us we could go but they didn't explain why we were in there,' said Hijikuro.